The Fishing Club

The Saturday night fishing club was not a club that met on a regular basis. It used to, before there were kids and wives and mortgage payments to make. Before Brian moved back home to Lethbridge and took his amazing box of tackles with him and before Hank stopped drinking and falling into the bay. In those days they would gather rain or clear summer or winter at the fishing pier next to where the old Top-Of-The-Pier used to be before it burned down. Back before the city turned it into a park, and Harbor lights was the only waterfront restaurant left that was worth a damn.

For one summer back in 82, the club boasted 12 members, all Canadian. Although it didn’t start out that way on purpose, the Canadian only rule was quickly adopted and remained in effect ever since. There was no charter for the club, no set of rules per se, you just had to have your own reel, bucket and only drink Canadian beer. The fishing would start whenever you got there and go on through the night and well into Sunday.

Lots of the guys would get there after they had taken their dates home. Once or twice the dates wanted to come along, but once you got out there, there was no leaving. No Girlfriend ever came out twice.

Corlis used to go. He was born in Red Deer but spent most his life in Calgary before moving to the lower 48 during the great Canadian migration of the early eighties. At that time the Canadian economy was in the tank and there was great promise in the Ronald Reagan U.S. of A. A large number of Canadians packed up their stuff and moved to Washington in the mistaken belief that good jobs were just around the corner, and that Tacoma was a city balancing on the edge of greatness.

No one foresaw how long the city could balance on that edge.

Twenty some odd years later the club was down to five members. No longer an every Saturday night affair, they would, every few months or so, pull out their rods and reels, pull on old rain gear and with a short case of Molson in their bucket, head out to the pier.

The old fishing spot they used to use has mostly Cambodian and Laotian immigrants using it these days. So now they meet at a newer pier built after a hotel moved into the neighborhood.

Sunday afternoon Corlis came by all bleary eyed and ragged. I think he was trying to renege on watching the game, but I wouldn’t let him. We hopped into his Desoto and headed down to the Spar. He was asleep before halftime and afterwards, I was just barely able to wake him up long enough to drag him into his car and drive him home.